The grain of truth

With grain prices lower than they’ve been for more than a decade FAR’s Nick Poole says there’s a need to differentiate between agronomy that creates yield potential, and that which protects yield potential. Andrew Swallow reports. What winter cereals have you sown? If you heard Nick Poole from the Foundation for Arable Research (FAR) speak at the organisation’s recent round of trial results meetings and haven’t opted for cultivars with a robust disease resistance profile, you might be kicking yourself, especially if you’ve been tempted by the trend to earlier drilling in a push for more yield. Poole discussed strategies for “maximising profitability of cereal crops in the current economic climate”. While he stressed he was not presenting a recipe, choosing disease-resistant cultivars was a central theme. “It all comes back to germplasm,” he said, reflecting on the fact that the optimum nitrogen rate for winter wheat varies little with movement in grain or nitrogen price – see Table 1 below. “When you select a variety think about the diseases that are prevalent in your region,” Poole urged. For example, wheat cultivar Torch is susceptible to leaf rust but has good septoria resistance, making it a wise choice for the far south and possibly south Canterbury, but more risky and-or costly to grow further north.